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What Happened to 1980's MTV VJ Kevin Seal?

By Dustin Rowles | Mindhole Blowers | September 19, 2016 |

By Dustin Rowles | Mindhole Blowers | September 19, 2016 |


This is completely random because I know that if I hadn’t mentioned his name, those of you even in the right age bracket probably wouldn’t have even remembered Kevin Seal. He was an MTV VJ in the 1980s, probably best known as one of the hosts of 120 Minutes, the alternative music program back when “alternative” didn’t mean, “Stuff that old white people listen to.” It was later replaced by Alternative Nation, which was hosted by Kennedy, who is now a commentator on Fox News, which is insane, because the woman who helped to usher in Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam for us is now advocating for the abolishment of public schools on conservative news.

As I was saying: Kevin Seal. If you need a memory refresher, here he is going nuts back in 1988.

So where’d that guy go, right? Is there, like, a heaven for former MTV VJs, where Adam Curry mixes drinks, Riki Rachtman mixes drinks, and Matt Pinfield complains that he should’ve been cast as Wilson Fisk?

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I dunno, but I do know that Dave Holmes was on the Nerdist podcast a while back, and he spoke at length about the fact that he is gay, and was never closeted or anything, but no one even considered that he might be gay because he was “too fat.” I had no idea. Holmes, by the way, was amazing, and still is. He’s a freelance writer and regular contributor to Esquire and New York Magazine/Vulture, among others. He’s also better looking now than he was in the 90s.

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Sorry. I got sidetracked again. Kevin Seal! I was listening to Lynn Shelton on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast this week, and she starts talking about her family, and she says that she’s married to Kevin Seal, the former MTV VJ. And I was like:

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Worlds colliding, right? One of the best indie directors around (Humpday, Touchy Feely, Your Sister’s Sister and my favorite, Laggies) is married to a MTV VJ from the 1980s?

Yes! But what’s he up to, then? Shelton explained that Seal did a lot of voice work in New York after MTV, but that she ended up bringing him to Seattle with her. There, he actually went to design school and became a professional woodworker. He worked for a high-end firm until it went bankrupt. Now?

“When he was looking around for a new job,” Shelton tells Marc Maron, “we realized that the most important job he could be doing is taking care of our kid, whose deaf [and has a lot of needs]. It turns out, he’s a much better full-time parent than I am, and it suits him. [He and our son] are like best friends.”

Well, that is just fantastic. And congrats, Kevin Seal, on a wonderful wife and what sounds like a wonderful life.

Here’s a photo of Shelton and Seal, which I assume is from a while back since it’s on her MySpace page.

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Here’s a link to a couple of Lynn Shelton movies on Netflix. Go watch them.